An open letter to the resident on Euclid Drive with cone-shaped ghost figurines in the front lawn:
Dear Sir or Madam,
Please reconsider the ghost decorations on your lawn. With their cone frames draped in white cloth, I could’ve sworn as I drove by your home that the KKK was standing proudly in your yard, and my heart dropped into my stomach. Although I realized within split seconds that these white-hooded cones were figurines, not real humans, nevertheless I had to pull an abrupt U-turn to view the figurines more closely and try to convince myself that they were intended to look like ghosts.
The wrong kind of ghosts, in my opinion.
My seven- and ten-year-old children had a necessary but difficult history lesson because of your Halloween decor. I don’t have the grace within me to thank you for prompting that conversation. With racialized slurs, white fear, and overt racism featuring so prominently into our public discourse these days, your lawn ornaments–whether intentionally or not–hint strongly of a gruesome violence that we must always be resisting; a violence that we Whites must never forget and for which we must always be accountable.
Your “ghosts” certainly struck fear into my heart, just in time for Halloween.
Please take them down.
Sincerely,
A concerned passerby